Meet the Grounders – Coffee that is!

Dictionary Definitions for a Grounder

There are some great people out at the Lonely Planet offices in Melbourne that have been collecting coffee grounds for some time, and this was from where I first came across the term ‘Grounder’. It might not be appearing in the Oxford Concise Dictionary just yet, but you never know how these things work out….

Ground-er

A person that collects and recycles used Coffee Grounds. An individual involved in used coffee collection activities for environmental and social benefit.

Image by Baseball player photos via Flickr

oops, that’s better.

Who are the Coffee Grounders?

They live among us, these Grounders. They go about their business is secret, collecting the coffee grounds that will make the soil of tomorrow BLAH BLAH BLAH.

There are forty individuals at CGU 181 William Street, half a dozen at the Lonely Planet offices in Footscray, at least one and growing at the AXA docklands building. Then there are the dozens of people I have met and spoken with that have been doing this their whole lives, or those that picked it up recently after finding out about how using coffee grounds is great for plants and compost. And then there are the cafes involved, great work all.

As a group we are able to make genuine change. I could not clear out the 200 kilos of used coffee grounds that come out of 181 William Street each week on my own. Now there is not enough to go around, and that is a great problem to have.

The best (and worst) part about making use of coffee grounds is that they are available in huge quantities. Across the world, hundreds of tonnes are discarded each day, and the benefits that we would otherwise share are lost.